We are still getting e-mails, like this one, concerning our New York Times column a while back about the leisure/work distinctions in “hobbies” like gardening, cooking, knitting, etc.
But the following message, from economist Shoshana Grossbard, is easily among the best. She teaches at San Diego State and is the founding editor of the Review of Economics of the Household. Here’s an excerpt from her dispatch:
In your stimulating Freakonomics column of May 6, 2007, you propose the following definition of work and leisure: “It’s work if someone else tells you to do it and leisure if you choose to do it yourself.” Your examples of leisure include a home-cooked meal that Stephen occasionally prepares and tomatoes that Steven grows. Here are some of my ideas as an economist of the household as well as a wife and mother of 25+ years of experience.
I agree that an arbitrary categorization of household activities as work or leisure is meaningless. At the same time, basing that distinction on whether an activity is voluntary or commanded — as you suggest — is problematic as well. Most household production is performed on a voluntary basis. This certainly applies to most home cooking.
Nobody ever commanded me to cook. The father of my children would not have been my husband if he had told me to cook for him! When cooking is Stephen’s favored activity, it is leisure. He is indulging in his hobby. In contrast, I don’t consider cooking a hobby.
I would categorize as “work” most of the time I have spent preparing thousands of meals for my family. In my opinion, an activity in household production is work and not leisure if: (1) it is not a preferred activity, i.e. it entails a relatively high opportunity cost; and (2) a family member who benefits from the activity is willing and able to “pay” the person to engage in this activity (even if no actual monetary transaction occurs).
To me cooking is work: most times it entails an opportunity cost, such as the value of checking my emails or reading the Freakonomics column in the N.Y. Times. You may call me a mercenary, but I admit that I would not have cooked as many meals for my husband if he had not compensated me for it by increasing my individually disposable income. We had an implicit agreement that even though we were both holding full-time jobs outside the home, I would do all the at-home cooking.
It was also my job to meet with our children’s teachers in case they misbehaved in school. Being “talked down to” by an elementary school teacher is definitely not my idea of leisure, but it is an important input in the “household” production of quality children. My children’s father never wanted to talk to the teachers. That was part of my job…
It was my choice to engage in this household production because the price was right. My [now] ex-husband’s income covered most of our bills, leaving me more personally disposable income than I would have access to had we not entered this implicit contract involving the exchange of my time for his money…
If I am not exceptional in my mercenary nature, then other at-home cooks may also be expecting some reward for their efforts. Furthermore, men who don’t cook and expect their wives to cook for them may need to give up pleasant low-paying jobs in order to cover required quasi-wage payments. If they become employers of a cooking wife, they will gain from realizing that idiosyncratic food tastes may be an obstacle to marital bliss. Otherwise, if restaurant meals and frozen dinners don’t suit them, and they can’t afford to pay the quasi-wages that home-cooking women are expecting in today’s marriage markets, they may end up single!
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I believe Mr. Adam Smith makes the same point as you guys did in your column more than 200 years ago (although your column does add to his origional observation.
“Their delightful art (gardening) is practised by so many rich people for amusement, that little advantage is to be made by those who practise it for profit; because the persons who should naturally be their best customers supply themselves with all their most precious productions. “
I believe Mr. Adam Smith makes the same point as you guys did in your column more than 200 years ago (although your column does add to his origional observation.
“Their delightful art (gardening) is practised by so many rich people for amusement, that little advantage is to be made by those who practise it for profit; because the persons who should naturally be their best customers supply themselves with all their most precious productions. “
Enough with the opaque dissertations on the work vs. leisure debate, which anyway Veblen already covered centuries ago. More posting please on how this is adopt a cat month.
Enough with the opaque dissertations on the work vs. leisure debate, which anyway Veblen already covered centuries ago. More posting please on how this is adopt a cat month.
A few problems with this analysis:
First, every activity, not matter how fun, requires time. Consequently, every activity has an opportunity cost, regardless of whether it is leisure or work. Thus, defining work as an opportunity-costing activity would require that all activities be work. Now that doesn’t mean it cannot pass a cost-benefit analysis. A weekend in the Bahamas, in my mind, is a weekend well spent. Nonetheless, that means it’s a weekend that cannot be spent at a football game, which is the opportunity cost. Nothing is opportunity cost free. So defining work as an activity with an opportunity cost is silly.
Second, as much as we can try, activities don’t fit into neat binary categories, such as leisure and work. Some activities are part leisure and part work. For example, for Steven Levitt, reading Econometrica might be leisure, work, or both. The world isn’t binary, even though humans, and thus economists, like to think it is (as Kenneth Burke said, we are inventors of the negative, which makes us view the world in a binary fashion). I’m not sure how to deal with this problem, but here’s a suggestion:
X-OC=L
where,
X = The enjoyment of the activity
OC = The enjoyment of the most enjoyable activity given up (the opportunity cost)
L = The degree of leisure
I’m an economist in training, one could say, so I apologize if this oversimplified suggestion is nonsensical. All criticisms are welcome.
A few problems with this analysis:
First, every activity, not matter how fun, requires time. Consequently, every activity has an opportunity cost, regardless of whether it is leisure or work. Thus, defining work as an opportunity-costing activity would require that all activities be work. Now that doesn’t mean it cannot pass a cost-benefit analysis. A weekend in the Bahamas, in my mind, is a weekend well spent. Nonetheless, that means it’s a weekend that cannot be spent at a football game, which is the opportunity cost. Nothing is opportunity cost free. So defining work as an activity with an opportunity cost is silly.
Second, as much as we can try, activities don’t fit into neat binary categories, such as leisure and work. Some activities are part leisure and part work. For example, for Steven Levitt, reading Econometrica might be leisure, work, or both. The world isn’t binary, even though humans, and thus economists, like to think it is (as Kenneth Burke said, we are inventors of the negative, which makes us view the world in a binary fashion). I’m not sure how to deal with this problem, but here’s a suggestion:
X-OC=L
where,
X = The enjoyment of the activity
OC = The enjoyment of the most enjoyable activity given up (the opportunity cost)
L = The degree of leisure
I’m an economist in training, one could say, so I apologize if this oversimplified suggestion is nonsensical. All criticisms are welcome.
Grossbard response to mgjosefsen
I also find that my children are my greatest source of pleasure. Nevertheless, i would call ‘work’ many of the activities involved in helping children become ‘parental pleasure providers’, especially if the co-parent appreciates this work and is willing to pay for it. I am very lucky that my co-parent generally appreciated and continues to appreciate many of my contributions to our children’s wellbeing, including the many visits I paid to the children’s teachers and some of my cooking. His willingness to compensate me for that work has benefit the children and the parents.
Grossbard response to mgjosefsen
I also find that my children are my greatest source of pleasure. Nevertheless, i would call ‘work’ many of the activities involved in helping children become ‘parental pleasure providers’, especially if the co-parent appreciates this work and is willing to pay for it. I am very lucky that my co-parent generally appreciated and continues to appreciate many of my contributions to our children’s wellbeing, including the many visits I paid to the children’s teachers and some of my cooking. His willingness to compensate me for that work has benefit the children and the parents.